Monday, October 10, 2016

A certain fictitious
character, a Vulcan no less, once said: ‘The needs of the many outweigh the
needs of the few – or the one’ and although the positive memories I have
outweigh the negative there were lots of things that were an absolute disgrace
and for someone who boasts about their event being: ‘the largest official Star
Trek convention celebrating 50 years’, one thing about all else clearly was
dismissed: the fan, the Trekkie, the people that have kept Star Trek alive for
5 decades.

Yes, there were many big
names associated with the franchise but for those of us who also come to a
convention to browse endless stalls, pick up some unique stuff and/or a bargain
this convention was a real let down and in total there must have been less than
a dozen vendors. On the Friday afternoon, after having to queue for nearly two
hours to get a wristband for entrance over the next three days, an empty hall
awaited us. Apart from a single Borg – regeneration station and a few gongs
that marked the ‘Klingon zone’ almost everything else cost extra.

For the (paid) talks
there were massive queues on the Saturday and they were all over the place and
badly managed, which meant your best bet would be not to move from your spot
for an hour at least. The events often also started late and I heard many
people complain that they have paid for a talk but due to delays it now clashes
with a photoshoot for which they had paid for and so they couldn’t actually
attend the talk/panel or had to leave much earlier than anticipated.

Personally, I have no
issue with the people who worked there, the ‘crew’ as they called themselves,
as many remained friendly enough even under the rightful barrage of attendees
who couldn’t find their way around with all the confusing, different types of
queues.

I was allowed by staff
twice to just walk up to Garrett Wang and Robert O’Reilly respectively just to
shake their hands while they were otherwise busy signing autographs (on
pictures that one needed to purchase as well) but was surprised on the other
hand that we weren’t allowed to take pictures of all the actors even from a
discreet distance (at least on the Sunday) and Gates McFadden even shielded her
face with her hands when she spotted our mobile phones turned cameras – wouldn’t
that be another reason to go to a convention to see all your favourite actors
and maybe go home with a snapshot of some of them??

Glancing at the many models
of ships etc I thought most prices were decent enough but was surprised to see
a ‘Star Trek’ (2009) Blu Ray being sold for £25 when you get the DVD for less
than £5 at any ‘Amazon’ outlet and I doubt that a Blu-Ray would warrant that
price.

While waiting for the
William Shatner photo shoot on Sunday we overheard a crew manager making a
phone call asking someone how many people would roughly attend the Shatner
photo shoot on the classic bridge (if you could call it that, see pictures
below) and then repeating the number out loud: 220 – that would mean that over
200 people would have to be rushed through and get about 5 seconds with Mr.
Shatner (and a precious photograph) and for £70 a piece that would create a
£15.400 revenue in under an hour – would it not be fair enough for all the
money they’ve made to have more vendors or, like at other conventions I’ve
attended, to have some professionally dressed up people role playing with fans
for instance? The gorgeous Borg girl and the perfect grand Nagus guy were, as
it turned out, just fans, too.

But, as mentioned
earlier, not all was bad: There were some free panels on the Voyager stage with
some of my favourite actors and the panels/talks (paid for events) were full of
great looking, well dressed up fans and the actors on stage were very generous
with their time and candid with their answers. By Sunday everything was a bit
more relaxed and the queuing system was in working order and many great
conversations happened between perfect strangers all revolving around our
favourite topic: Star Trek.

I left the event happy
after meeting (for maybe 20 seconds) the legendary James Tiberius Kirk at the
photo shoot, glimpsing at Sulu, Gates McFadden, ‘Shut up Wesley’ Will Wheaton
while they were busy chatting to fans and signing autographs and listening and
seeing many of my favourite Star Trek characters on stage and price-wise for £50
for three days plus the additional costs for talk and photo shoot it was ok.

Many people who came
there were very disappointed by the lack of interest in creating a Star Trek
feel in the hall which would have made such a difference given that this was a
three day event and judging by the comments on the various Facebook pages many
people weren’t happy about the things I mentioned earlier but in the vein of
Trek we were and are all very forgiving and grateful that Star Trek is still
around and will continue and ‘boldly go where no man has gone before’ – Kapla (as
Gowron said to me when I shook his hand).

Sunday, October 9, 2016

It isn’t the norm
that a gig is stunning sound-wise (first class sound) and visually (the
lighting effects were out of this world) and when you add an artist that has
been around for 4 decades and doesn’t write sub-par material EVER (in my humble
opinion) then what you have is a perfect night out.

And that is
exactly what that was – a perfect night out, a perfect concert, genius level.

‘Electronica’ and ‘Electronica
2’, Jean-Michel Jarre’s last two albums, underline the fact that he is one of
the godfathers of electronic music and that he has inspired millions of
musicians around the globe and that the world’s best feel honoured and humbled
to be on an album with him.

The Electronica albums impressively show his
versatility and clear timelessness in his approach to music.

68 years old
Jean-Michel proofed a tour de force on stage and said that he is very happy to
have started his tour in the UK and that the UK is his second home ‘with or
without Brexit’.

Having recorded
with the crème de la crème of the electronic music scene on the two Electronica
albums, he performs very early into the show his collaboration with Erasure’s
Vince Clarke and plays the track he recorded with the Pet Shop Boys a little
later in the show as well as performing ‘Exit’, a collaboration with Edward
Snowdon, who can be seen on a massive video screen.

In fact, there were
numerous video screens that could be combined to create a stage-wide canvas and
there wasn’t a moment in the show (that unfortunately is less than two hours
long) where the visual senses weren’t awed.

The real
highlights of the show undoubtedly were the tracks from the ‘Equinoxe’ and ‘Oxygen’
albums and even more amazingly December 2nd marks ‘Oxygene’s 40th
anniversary and a brand-new album ‘Oxygene 3’ will be released on December 2nd
2016.

We were very
fortunate that a brand-new song from the album, namely ‘Oxygen 17’ was performed
by Jean-Michel and his two stage musicians, who added some synths and a hell of
a lot of drums and percussion to proceedings.

What was interesting
about the Jarre gig was that nothing felt ‘retro’ or dated and out of place or
out of touch.

And, luckily, his
laser harp, long a trademark of his, did work as well.

The audience could
have been a bit wilder and Jarre himself asked security to relax a little and
to allow people to get up and dance.

From where I was
sitting it felt that ‘Oxygene Pt. 4’ was the most appreciated track of the
evening. That said, the crowd clearly loved what they heard and saw and showed
their appreciation.